A Social History of Epsom Common

The word community springs to mind – a very overrated description, I prefer to think of people who lived nearby and shared a common need but not a common collective mindset. Their remoteness from the town and other groups made them aware that they were separate, and they often came in for criticism from the folks that lived in Epsom itself – jealous of their seeming independence and their indifference to anyone not from the Common. Fuzzchat, the accepted term for a Common-born person, was even interpreted as an insult: a child (chat) born under a furze (fuzz) bush*, it being generally considered that they were a lot of babies born out of wedlock on the Common, which had some truth to it. But this was a twentieth-century description. We need go back further to seek out the original families.

Much settlement had taken place by the beginning of the nineteenth century in a series of small group encroachments which outlined the Common and its cottages as we know them today. What brought a halt to encroachment was the 1839 Union Map (renewed in 1843 as the Tithe Map). For the first time the layout was set down on paper and could be used to question or challenge any alteration in the external boundaries of appropriated land. It was a different matter within these boundaries, where plots and gardens were still in flux for many years. This continued until HM Land Registry came into existence, and fixed boundaries with Ordnance Survey grid references and a map view on the title plan.

Many of the original encroachers went on to claim squatters’ rights. If a second or third-generation occupier sold the cottage or plot of land, the conveyance would include an indemnity clause to protect purchasers against any third-party claims though no such claim was ever made to my knowledge. Often, they would use solicitors’ jargon to cover the origins of the property, saying for instance it was formerly of James Chapman and then William Cunningham.

Successful squatters would remain on the Common for several generations and many of them were responsible for the early cottages or houses that began to appear after the first encroachment cottages, which were often poorly constructed. These were not the original buildings of the encroachment. They had been small properties, never more than single storey, with a poorly constructed rendered solid wall and stone slab floors; the inside was divided into one or two rooms and a fireplace, while the roofs were nearly always timber with tree branches. The saving grace of a property like this was the large plot of land that accompanied it, but this made them vulnerable to modern development in which the cottages were either demolished or left isolated on tiny plots as their gardens were sold off to build more houses around them. The few early cottages that survive have been rebuilt to modern standards.

Some house names like Crimea or Jubilee commemorate national events, but it was more usual for cottages to be known after their owner (or occasionally occupier); many of the original encroachers can be traced through the cottages named after them. On marriage or widowhood, a property would change its name to go with the occupant, as happened at the cottage built by William Skinner, the first appropriator of its land. William died in 1858 and on inheriting the property, his son James took in a housekeeper Mary Goff, who shortly after adopted the name of Skinner. All the children, whatever their origins, went under the name of Skinner until James died in 1891, when Mary and her offspring reverted to the name of Goff, and the building followed suit, changing from Skinners Cottage to Goff Cottage.

One of the many Mann families.
Left to right: Dorothy, George, Mary Ann Caroline (Dinah), Clara, Lucy, and George.

Most families on the Common were connected by marriage, as can be seen from the christening and marriage records of Christ Church for the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. This helped social cohesion, since families like Skinner, Mann, Warwick, Sutton, Stone, Ede, Ratcliffe, Risbridger, Lewin and Fisher could all boast ties with each other.

The Martin family on Bramble Walk
The number of their children is typical of the Common.
Charles (Toby) Martin, the father, was well remembered
as a cricket player for the Working Man’s Club.

The Common was a poor area where most people had rent to pay, they welcomed any source of additional income such as taking in washing. The more businesslike created small laundries – Lewins, Kingswood, Simons and Ede flourished for a time, some growing into larger businesses whilst others faded away. Much has been made, and rightly so, of the Common’s laundries and washerwomen, but the dairies seem to have been forgotten. Small herds of cattle led to small dairies. Cunningham, Edwards and Wonham & Webb all followed this line of business, the smallest of the dairies being Frances Smith’s at 81 Bracken Path and Alderney at 65 Bramble Walk.

In his later years William Cunningham ran a dairy on Woodlands Road. He was another encroacher, recorded in many property deeds on the Common and Woodlands Road. His daughter Mary married the German-born John Jacob Lidle, himself responsible for many cottages that still exist today. Concerned to secure his daughter’s future, William bequeathed his estate to her and her husband on the condition that if John left Mary, he would lose all rights to the estate.

By far my favourite encroacher was Thomas Griffith, a name that is forgotten today but earned so much local respect at the time that he often appears on legal documents as a witness. Much of the encroached area defined by today’s Bracken Path and Church Side was his domain; he built many of the cottages here with his sons doing the carpentry work. Later they went on to be publicans, and many of their cottages still exist today on the Common.

The original Thomas Griffith cottage on Bracken Path, now replaced by a modern bungalow.
Thomas (1799–1869) married Sarah (1802–66) from Farnham.
Their children were Henry Griffith (1832–1907) of Glenavon Cottage;
James Griffith (1834–95); Thomas Griffith (1837–1913), of 3 Stamford Green Cottage;
and Hannah Griffith. They were all born and died on the Common except James, who died at Croydon.

On the other side of the Common, near Willow Path and Bramble Walk, the Skinners gave way to the Fisher and Lewin families, centred on their matriarch Isabella. Née Chandler, she married Thomas Fisher in 1863, and they had eight children and many grandchildren. Thomas died in 1874 and two years later Isabella married William Lewin, going on to have six more children and again many grandchildren, so that the first generation were all half-siblings. Isabella seems to have been the driving force behind the establishment of Lewins Laundry in 1895. Previously she had purchased a bank of six cottages, named Isabella Cottages, which housed many of her children and relatives. She is commemorated by a plaque above the front door of Isabella Villa, fronting onto Lewins Laundry.

It is 90% certain that the lady at the centre is Isabella Lewin, formerly Fisher, née Chandler.

Isabella Lewin died in 1916, appointing William Fisher and Leonard Lewin as her executors and bequeathing all her estate in equal shares (including Isabella Villa and the laundry, both freehold) to her five surviving children. To this day there are members of the Fisher family living on the Common. Eventually Lewins Laundry was taken over by Woodcote Side Laundry, run by Osbornes and Kings; for a time during WW2 it was a factory producing war materials until at last it was replaced by a group of maisonettes.

The Battens are another family from this part of the Common,
remembered as horse people (they harvested grass off the Common for horse feed)
and landlords of the Jolly Coopers.

The largest dairy was run by John Edwards at 7 Castle View, on the corner and next to Isabella Cottages. Having started in 1865, he was able in 1901 to hand over the business to his son George. It is not clear when the dairy closed; it was certainly still going in 1929 when George Edwards sold it to Frederick Reeves and Roddy Richmond, along with No 7 Castle View and Oak House. The two men had originally formed a company as Richmond & Reeves but shortly afterwards had parted, Reeves went into haulage and Richmond into transport, the future Epsom Coaches. Cecil Reeves, Frederick’s son, said that as a lad he had seen the redundant dairy equipment laying around unused. In the mid-1960s Frederick Reeves sold No. 7 Castle View together with his haulage business to Johnson & Johnson the baby powder people, and they in turn sold it to Joseph Holley. Eventually the warehouse was sold to a developer, the sheds were demolished, and a detached house and garage were built in its place – not without some opposition.

Many of the town’s shopkeepers and tradesmen purchased cottages and plots of land, among them William Chapman and John Bailey along with Bradnum, Macmillan, Shard and Charmaine. In the early twentieth century they built houses for their relatives, some of them still living on the Common today.

There is no doubt that when the Working Men’s Club opened in 1881 it was a focus for the people of the Common – though not for everyone. Some stayed loyal to the Cricketers and the Jolly Coopers. For over one hundred years the Club provided social activities, cheap ale, cricket, family outings and a place to celebrate national events. The Jolly Coopers followed this tradition on a lesser scale as did the residents of Bramble Walk often celebrated with gatherings and parties.

The Working Men’s Club

1937 at the Joly Coopers

1945 Victory Celebrations

VE Day

1953 Coronation

The traditions continue to this day and there have been celebration parties for the Queen’s Jubilee and the King’s Coronation

Many others contributed to the early development of the Common. James Bullen and his wife Susan owned property around Bramble Walk, as did the Tickner family, original owners of the Jolly Coopers. George Eggleton built cottages and so did his wife’s family, the Edwards; though not resident on the Common, Arthur Waglan and H.W. Saunders were responsible for the Edwardian houses on Bramble Walk and Bracken Path/Church Side. These were built to meet a demand for housing following the opening of the Asylum Hospitals. The Lord of the Manor of Epsom, owner of the Common Waste, also built some houses on Stamford Green and Bracken Path, purely for rental income.

The long history of brick and tile manufacture came to an end in the 1860s. The land, which had been held as copyhold by the Chilcote family, was enfranchised and brought by the bailiff George Oakshott. For many years he ran a pig farm there but eventually after his death it was sold to Ideal Homes, who constructed the maisonettes on Stamford Green Road and Willis Close.

George Oakshott with his pigs

On Woodlands Road a large rectangle of land below the circular area of the Wells had lost its status as common waste. At first it was farmed but by the beginning of the nineteenth century it had been turned into small plots and allotments, which led to small cottages and then to large cottages and then to houses. For a while the Guardians of the Epsom Union seem to have encouraged small-scale cultivation. The first cottage belonged to William Chapman: whether he initiated settlement is not clear, but within a few years the whole of the rectangular area was occupied by housing. As in Stamford Green area, each of the first deeds contained a clause indemnifying the seller against any claim or costs by the buyer on the grounds of default of title. Names like Skinner, Stone, Mann, Toone, Sutton, Chapman, Bennett, Bixley and Thornton appear on the early deeds and the Railway Deviation plans.

It was not unusual for couples to be married ‘over the brush’. Add to this the influence such groups as the Open-Air Mission were having and you can see why Christ Church decided to act and opened St. Michael’s chapel to bring the people of Woodlands Road back into the fold. George Kingswood ,the owner of Kingswood Laundry, had a very difficult relationship with his son – so much that so that in his will, he left this son his trousers in hope that one day he might be able to fill them. Dear Reader, such is life.

Jane Spence née Stone, who had family ties to the Woods

The population on both sides of the Common remained very stable, with local families occupying cottages as they became vacant so that relatives and in-laws lived close by each other. Those who left would often return and take up residence on the Common again. This made for a sense of belonging and of separation from the townsfolk which was gradually lost with the advent of mass property ownership and rising prices. Now it has gone completely, giving way to a quick change of owners who extend and develop and move on, but if you search you can still find some remnants of the families of old.

Lastly, I should recall the names of people who time has forgotten, but who played their part: Ardy, Ayling, Bailey, Bartholomew, Batton, Bennett, Bower, Bradnum, Bullen, Cunningham, Easton, Ede, Edwards, Eggleton, Elsey, Emm, Falkner, Fisher, Flint, Griffith, Heath, Hill, Hitchener, Keary, Kingswood, Kitcherside, Lewin, Mann, Marney/ Smith, Martin, Newberry, Oakshott, Penniket, Ratclife, Reeves, Risbridger, Robinson, Russell, Sanders, Sayer, Skinner, Spicer, Spikesman, Stone, Sutton, Thornton, Tickner, Toone, Tutte and all those that I have missed! Several of these people were responsible for the encroachments that led to the erection of many early cottages. The article ‘Epsom Common Cottages in1896’ will show the location of many of the these.

I have left out any mention of the Ede or Sullivan families. As both have left an archive of old family photographs, I have written them up separately.

*Originally the name meant the furzechat or stonechat, a bird that lives on the Common.

Photographs courtesy of EEFHS, Bourne Hall Museum and the Friday Collection.

Terry Friday © 2025